Multi-band mobile phones capable of handling telephone calls and transmitting data by a plurality of communication methods have been widely used. These multi-band mobile phones are generally provided with a front-end module made by integrating a RF circuit composed of one or more high-frequency switches, filters, and amplifying elements into a single package. The front-end module divides a received multi-band signal containing superimposed signals of a plurality of frequency bands into signals of individual frequency bands, and outputs the divided signal to a subsequent circuit such as a receiver.
There are some publications proposing a downsized font-end module in which an amplifying element is shared by a plurality of frequency bands. For example, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2005-64778 (the “'778 Publication”) discloses a front-end module with shared output terminals, wherein a pair of bandpass filters having different passbands are disposed in parallel between a common input terminal and common output terminals, and the input end of each of the pair of bandpass filters is connected to a switch and the output end of each of the pair of bandpass filters is connected to another switch (see FIG. 8-B in the '778 Publication).